Wednesday, November 07, 2012

Samalayuca UFO Crash?

Here’s
a bit of a conundrum. I have been looking into a report of a flaming object
crash on October 12, 1947. According to a short article that appeared in an
unidentified newspaper:

FLAMING
MYSTERY STARTLES TEXANS, CROSSES BORDER

El
Paso, Tex, Oct 12 – (AP) An unidentified flaming object soared over the
Texas-Mexico border today, apparently smashing into the Samalayuca mountains of
Mexico with a loud explosion and billows of smoke.

The
approximate impact area was estimated to be less than 10 miles from the point
where a V-2 rocket off its track crashed south of Juarez May 20.

The
public relations officer at the White Sands proving grounds where the V-2
rockets have been launched said none of the missiles had been fired since
Oct.9.

Maj.
Gen. John L. Homer, Fort Bliss [near El Paso] commander and military officials
at air fields and other installations in the southwest, said that no guided
missiles had been fired today and no rocket planes were missing from the fields
in the area.

At
least four persons saw the fiery object darting through the skies “with the
speed of a falling star” at approximately 9:30 a.m.

For
those keeping score at home, this is case number 93 in the Project Blue Book
files (and yes, I know it was Project Sign in 1947). It shows multiple
witnesses and is “solved” as a meteor.

Yes,
it sounds like a meteor. The witness descriptions of it moving “with the speed
of a falling star,” the loud explosions and the billows of smoke are all
characteristics of a bolide, that is, a very bright meteor.

However,
there is a teletype message in the file that came from “Helmick CO AAFLD
Alamogordo on Oct 15,” and was sent to the Commanding General, AMC at Wright
Field in Dayton that suggests otherwise. It said that the Mexican government in
Mexico City had reported the “unidentified flaming object that landed about 35
miles from Juarez, Mexico [across the border from El Paso] was definitely a
rocket to have been launched from some Texas base.”

There
is also a report from an officer in charge of the Juarez military garrison who
claimed the false report of a rocket crash came from the Mexican Department of
War. He said they were continuing their search for whatever had hit, but that
implies they had not found any wreckage.

I
do have another newspaper clipping that provides additional information, an
official letter dated October 13, 1947 to “D/I Army Intelligence,” a letter
from the Military Attache in Mexico City dated October 16, an unclassified teletype
dated October 21 and signed by Colonel Millard Lewis, another signed by Lt.
Col. Douglass Eiseman dated October 24 and a diary page for General Hoyt S.
Vandenberg. I mention that so we all don’t have to run through those documents
several times. I have them and have seen them on the Internet at the Project 1947
historical group.

I’m
hoping someone in El Paso, West Texas, and that general region might be able to
learn a little more. The newspaper article is an Associated Press story so it
could have been published anywhere and I believe that both the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times were interested, but
don’t know what their conclusions might be. Message traffic, which are the other
documents, are routinely destroyed when they have served their purpose, though
the originator might retain file copies but after 65 years there seems unlikely
I’ll be able to find them.

If
anyone out there can point me in a direction that might yield a little more
information, I would appreciate it. I suspect, given the description and what I
know about bolides, is that this is the answer (because there is just no
evidence that this was a stray missile from White Sands or Fort Bliss) but
there are enough questions now to continue the search.

Once you've pasted the webpage address, hit your enter key and Google will translate and display the entire page. No need to tell it that you want to go from Spanish to English. It'll determine that automatically.

You can also get to Google Translate by going to https://www.google.com/ , clicking "More" from the top menu line and selecting "Translate" from the drop down menu.

It would be nice to get some fresher info on this. The page the other folks mentioned is a gathering of the press reports. As for that link, it IS interesting to note how the press continued on the "unsolved mystery" angle, but it was never taken up again...never revisited??

Also, I'm of the opinion "it" must have impacted. The witnesses gave the military enough information to point them toward "Cassetta - Reforma"...an actual physical/geographic location. This would mean that it wasn't a bolide "contrail", but an actual crash-site with a billow of smoke, which the eyewitnesses decribed.

The newest info I had been aware of with this was Project 1947's gaining some more data on the military cadets exchage that had occurred, coincidentaly, on the 13th.

I found that Forrestal did have a private meeting with them (the visiting Mexican Cadets), in his office, between 12:00-12:30. He also later had time with them at the dinner. One can only wonder if anyone traveling with these cadets would be conveying the Essential Elements of Information about it to Secretary Forrestal.

It would be nice to be able to find some "old timers" from the area. Someone might remeber that day. There must be more to the story.

EL PASO. Tex., Oct. 12—(AP)—An unidentified flaming object soared over the Texas-Mexico border oday, apparently smashing Into the Samalayuca mountains of Mexico with a loud explosion and billows of smoke.

The approximate Impact area was estimated to be less than 10 miles from the point where a V-2 rocket, off Its track, crashed south of Juarez May 29.

The public relations officer at the White Sands proving grounds, where the V-2 rockets have been launched, said none of the missiles had been fired since Oct. 9.

Maj. Gen. John L. Homer. Fort Bliss commander and military officials at air fields and other installations in the southwest, said that no guided missiles had been fired today and no rocket planes were missing from fields in the area.

At least four persons saw the fiery object darting through the skies "with the speed of a fallingstar" at approximately 9:30 a. m. Mexican time (8:30 a. m. MST) and many people In the Fabens, Tex., area, 28 miles east of El Paso on the Mexican border, heard the explosion of the body when itstruck.

Two persons on the highway between El Paso and Fabens reported seeing an unaccounted for billow of smoke in the Zamalayuca mountains about the time that the explosion was heard.

Sabas Aranda a reserve captain In the Mexican army, was the first to report the incident Captain Aranda, unable to reach the Juarez military garrison by telephone, went to the U. S. customs house, four miles southeast of Fabens, and reported the incident to J. C. Bunnell, U. S. customs inspector.

This is a report that appears in Project Blue Book. I have little reason to believe that it is the crash of an alien craft but I would like to know more about it rather than leaving it hang.

Bob -

It certainly sounds like a bolide, but we really don't know for sure. It doesn't seem to be a missile or a rocket since nothing was launched in the right time frame.

Chris -

Thanks for the article. This is exactly what I need. Just a little more information.

JAF -

My problem wasn't that the page was in Spanish... I can read Spanish, though it is slow gonig for me... but that when I used the url, it came up, according to my anti-virus, that it was an infected page. That was why I asked for a synopsis of the page.

Kevin, you don't have to visit the URL to use Google Translate. All you do is visit Google, so presumably your antivirus wouldn't get upset. Google itself visits the URL, does the translating and sends you the translated result. My antivirus did not act up either when I used Google Translate nor when I visited the URL directly.

The page quotes various newspaper articles. Here is the first one, the Bridgeport Telegram:

The impact area is estimated to be approximately less than 10 miles from the point where a V-2 rocket, out of its path, crashed south of Juarez, on May 29.

The public relations officer at the White Sands Proving Grounds, where the rockets were launched V-2, said none of the missiles had been fired from the October 9.

No rocket planes lost

Major General John L. Homer, commander of Fort Bliss and military officials in the fields of air and other facilities in the Southwest, said no guided missile had been launched today and had not lost rocket planes of area courses.

At least four people saw the object throwing fire into the air "with the speed of a star leaks" about 9:30 a m., Mexico time (8:30 am MST) and many people in the area of Fabens, Texas, 28 miles east of El Paso on the Mexican border, heard the explosion of the body when it crashed.

Two people on the road between El Paso and Fabens countless waves reported seeing smoke in the mountains of Samalayuca while the explosion was heard.

There was a terrible noise

Sabas Aranda, a reserve captain in the Mexican Army, was the first to report the incident. Captain Aranda, unable to telephone the military garrison of Ciudad Juarez, went to the office of the U.S., four miles southeast of Fabens, and reported the incident to JC Bunnell, U.S. customs inspector.

JW Hooten, editor of the El Paso Times, said he telephoned the Sheriff Alan Bunnell Falby here, that the mayor and other officials of Guadalupe, Mexico, across the border from Fabens, had reported seeing the object, about five meters long and three meters in diameter, coming to town to traveling about 30 feet above the ground and exploding with a terrible noise and heavy smoke was still in the impact zone three hours later.

Hooten said Guadalupe officials stated that the bomb came from the direction of the United States.

Captain Aranda, said the object moved from east to west, indicating that it came from the direction of the United States.

Some more from Google Translation of http://marcianitosverdes.haaan.com/2012/04/el-da-despus-de-roswell-60/ :

Another report in the newspapers says:

Mexico's Mysterious Missile

October 12, 1947

At 8:30 am on October 12, 1947, a blue or silver object in flames hit the Earth near the town of Guadalupe, Chihuahua, Mexico, just across the border from the town of Fabens, Texas.

It was reported that he had come from the direction of the United States, and produced a considerable impact crater. Members of the Mexican Army, who visited the site, said that the object was another V-2 similar to the incident of May 29, and the War Department issued a statement repeating Mexico affirmation. The Mexicans were understandably concerned about U.S. missile after the fiasco of the spring.

HoytVandenberg Maj. Gen. John Homer, commander of Fort Bliss, who had witnessed the accident Hermes II missile in May, personally investigated the incident in October to determine if the object was a missile outside U.S. control of some kind. While Homer expressed the view that the story was inflated, which received attention was surprisingly high levels in the U.S.. The incident was referenced in the diary of the Chief Hoyt Vandenberg Air Force.

In my book UFO crashes in Mexico [5], copy the part relating to this incident:

FlyingSaucersOnTheAttack Perhaps the first modern report of a UFO crash on Mexican territory is the one narrated by Harold T. Wilkins in his Flying Saucers on the Attack (Flying Saucers attack, page 72). It is a contemporary event (just three months apart) the famous Roswell Incident. Wilkins writes:

"To the south, in the territory of Mexico, southeast of El Paso, on October 10, 1947 [6], exploded in the sky blazing a mysterious object, and left behind him what he described as a "huge cloud of smoke." We can not say that this was a fireball or meteor of unusual size, but it is very remarkable that seven hours before this mysterious explosion in the sky of Mexico, five residents of the West Coast at the San Diego Tribune reported-Sun they had seen the largest celestial thing from Comet Halley:

OvnisEstrelladosEnMexico "'He crossed the sky seven hours before the explosion near El Paso. At about 12:30, they saw a luminous object in the Northeast. It seemed the size of a four-engine plane, seen from below, and seemed to be about 2,000 meters. His speed was huge and kept wake. He had a strong core fluorescent diffuse outward. It looked like Saturn with a ring around it, but it definitely was not a meteorite. Traveling in a straight line towards the horizon. '"

It really was Harold T. Wilkins who provided the first clue about the subject of UFOs crashed in Mexico. In particular on the case of Samalayuca, supposedly occurred in 1947, and of which I have already dealt another time. Wilkins wrote on page 54 of the book:

"My information is that this metal or alloy [7], was analyzed along with something that had fallen in similar circumstances other foreign object in the sky near Samalayuca, Mexico. "

The fact was true, only that Wilkins was confused at the time and place of "landing". Really the accident occurred on May 29, 1947, south of Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua, as discussed below. The facts were revealed by the press until mid-October when the ufologist would like accident [8].

The page quotes other newspaper accounts, which are mostly a repetition of the few I've posted here.

Incidentally, http://www.project1947.com/gr/oct47mystcrash.htm offers some documents on this same crash.

Two Biggs Field planes today, joined the search' for a "flaming object" that reportedly fell to Mexico south of Fabens Sunday.

Permission for the search was obtained from 12th Air Force headquarters at March Field, Calif.

Brig. Gen. Enrique Diaz Gonzales, commander of the Juarez military garrison military garrison, last night asked that U.S. Army planes aid in the search.

The Air Rescue Services plane pilots were prepared to drop smoke bombs to direct Mexican cavalrymen to likely spots.

Six horsemen were searching the area today.

A jeep-borne party abandoned a search for the' object yesterday when the jeep balked at climbing sandhills southwest of Cazeta, tiny Mexican village opposite Fabens.

One Man Saw Missile

The party, headed by General Diaz Gonzalez, followed a trail for nearly a mile into the desert, butfound no trace of the mystery missile.

General Gonzalez' party could find only one man who said he actually saw a strange object flashacross the sky, Sunday at 8:30 a. m. He is Sabas Aranda, farmer, of Cazeta.

Four others told the general they heard explosions about that time in the general direction of ArroyoCotilloze, between Cazeta and Samalayuca. They said the explosions must have occurred about 10 miles south of the border.

The horsemen, at General Diaz Gonzalez' direction, will search the Arroyo Cotilloze area.

A Las Cruces man who declined to permit use of his name, reported today that he and a friend were hunting at Caballo Dam between Las Cruces and Hot Springs Sunday, and he glanced to the southeastabout 8:30 in time to see a fiery ball "about the shape and color of an. orange" streak across the lower part of the sky, moving from east to west.

It had a tail of black smoke and disappeared in a moment below the crest of mountains between thedam and El Paso._____

El Paso, Oct. 12 (AP)—An unidentified flaming object soared over the Texas-Mexico border today, apparently smashing into the Zamalayuca Mountains of Mexico with a loud explosion and billows of smoke.

The approximate impact area was estimated to be less than 10 miles from the point where a V-2 rocket, off its track, crashed south of Juarez May 29.

The public relations officer at the White Sands Proving Grounds, where the V-2 have been launched, said none of the missiles had been fired since Oct. 9.

Maj. Gen. John L. Homer, Fort Bliss commander and military officials at air fields and other installations in the Southwest, said that no guided missiles had been fired today and no rocket planeswere missing from fields in the area.

At least four persons saw the fiery object darting through the skies "with the speed of a falling star" at approximately 9:30 o'clock this morning and many people in the Fabens area, 28 miles east of El Paso on the Mexican border heard the explosion of the body with {sic} it struck.

Two persons on the highway between El Paso and Fabens reported seeing an unaccounted for billow ofsmoke in the Zamalayuca Mountains about the time that the explosion was heard.

Sabas Aranda, a reserve captain in the Mexican Army, was the first to report the incident. Captain Aranda, unable to reach the Juarez military garrison by telephone, went to the US customs house, four miles southeast of Fabens. and reported the incident to J. C. Bunnell, US customs, inspector.

J. W, Hooten, editor of The El Paso Times, said Bunnell telephoned Sheriff Alan Falby here that the mayor and other officials of Guadalupe, Mexico, across the border from Fabens, had informed him that they saw the object, about 5 feet long and 3 feet in diameter, come over the town traveling about 30 meters above the ground and explode with a terrific noise and that smoke was still thick in the impact vicinity three hours later.

Captain Aranda said that the object was traveling from east to west, which would indicate that it came from the direction of the United States.

"Attracted by a brilliant light," Aranda said, "I looked up and saw an object trailing blue flame traveling at great; speed east to west. It made no noise while traveling but two blasts were heard shortly after It disappeared over .the sandhills near Colonia Reforma." Colonia Reform is a small town near the border.

Captain Aranda said that that the object did not have a trail of smoke. Jim Halloran, city editor of The El Paso Times, quoted local meteorologists as saying that had the object been a meteor, it would have been accompanied by a rumbling noise and a smoke trail._____

MEXICO CITY (AP) — The War Department reported officially yesterday that investigation of an explosion Sunday in the Zanalayuca Mountains, 35 miles south of Ciudad Juarez on the U. S. border, indicated it was caused by a V-2 projectile launched from a U. S. Army Experimental Station in Texas.

The communiqué did not elaborate.

Sunday the White Sands, N. M., proving grounds said that no V-2 rockets had been fired.

Planes from the Biggs Field, El Paso. Tex., Air Rescue Service earlier yesterday abandoned the search for "the object," a flaming body reportedly seen to have fallen Sunday in Mexico, about 10 miles from the border near Fabens, Tex.

"It had a tail of black smoke..." OR"Captain Aranda said that that the object did NOT have a trail of smoke. Jim Halloran, city editor of The El Paso Times, quoted local meteorologists as saying that had the object been a meteor, it would have been accompanied by a rumbling noise and a smoke trail."

So it did have a trail of smoke (check bolide) or it did not have a trail of smoke (not bolide). Further, nobody anywhere reported any sound associated with it while it was in flight, when a meteor traveling at hypersonic speed should be creating a terrible racket. (not bolide) Everyone agreed it seemed to impact and explode, sending up a column of smoke (could be anything).

"...had a strong core fluorescent diffuse outward. It looked like Saturn with a ring around it, but it definitely was not a meteorite. Traveling in a straight line towards the horizon. '"

In this case, the witness describes something that does not sound like a bolide and didn't think it was. The Saturn shape could even suggest--shudder--flying saucer, or not. Maybe just an odd description of a bolide.

Was it an errant missile?

"The public relations officer at the White Sands proving grounds, where the V-2 rockets have been launched, said none of the missiles had been fired since Oct. 9. Maj. Gen. John L. Homer. Fort Bliss commander and military officials at air fields and other installations in the southwest, said that no guided missiles had been fired today and no rocket planes were missing from fields in the area."

"MEXICO CITY (AP) — The War Department reported officially yesterday that investigation of an explosion Sunday in the Zanalayuca Mountains, 35 miles south of Ciudad Juarez on the U. S. border, indicated it was caused by a V-2 projectile launched from a U. S. Army Experimental Station in Texas.Sunday the White Sands, N. M., proving grounds said that no V-2 rockets had been fired."

So officially, the U.S. said no unaccounted for V-2's or other missile, but the Mexican authorities contradicted this, saying it was a V-2 from some unknown launch facility in Texas, not White Sands.

Still a lot of unanswered questions about this one. I'm particularly bothered by the reported absence of sound in flight and possible lack of smoke trail, which is similar to the green fireballs that made their appearance in the area a year later.

To the best of my recollection this was indeed a stray v-2 from white sands that prompted me to discuss the incident by email with S. Friedman about 7 years ago. It was described in detail in a book written about Operation Paperclip many years ago, probably the first of it's kind. I recall it was part of a program called Project WACK or some other term used for females enlisted in the army, but pretty sure it was WACK. bweber

The Chicago meeting of the section on astronomy of the A. A. A. S.Author: Wylie, C. C.Popular Astronomy, Vol. 56, p.217 "Contributions of the Meteoritical Society"(Known formerly as The Society for Research on Meteorites)Edited by Frederick C. LeoonardDepartment of Astronomy, University of California, Los Angeles 24

A Proposed Sky Patrol by the Meteoritical Society C. C. Wylie, Director of the Meteor Section State University of Iowa, Iowa Citypages 217 ffSpecifically, page 218 "… The flaming object which crashed near the Texas-Mexico border on October 12th of this year (1947) was reported by Mexicans as a V-2 bomb, but investigation by a member of the Meteoritical Society showed that it was a meteor."

ROSWELL, Oct. 16. (AP)—Roswell and surrounding area were plunged into darkness at 8:25 tonight as a switchboard at the Southwestern Public Service Co. plant burned out, shutting off all electric current.

H. E. Sampson, company district manager, said no one was injured at the plant.

Cause of the failure had not been determined, he added. There was no storm in the area, and there was apparently no external cause for the panel to burn out.

An emergency board is being brought from the company plant at Artesla. Sampson said service would be restored in about three or four hours.

Meanwhile newspaper publication was suspended, radio stations shut down, and the few business firms open at night were operating by candle light. Theaters refunded their patrons' money and closed for the night.

Thanks for the additional information. I appreciate the effort. I will note that the documents on the Project 1947 web site are ones that I already have, and that I do have a full copy of the Project Blue Book file on it as well.